Little more than a year after Intermountain Healthcare, Mayo Clinic, Catholic Health Initiatives and other founding partners established the nonprofit generic drug company Civica Rx, 12 additional health systems have signed on as new founding members. This means that, including the original founding members, Civica Rx now represents nearly 750 participating hospitals.

The new members include Advocate Aurora Health, NYU Langone Health and Oschner Health System. The goal is to compel lower costs and more predictable medicine supplies, “helping ensure that patients and their needs come first in the generic drug marketplace,” the company said.

THE IMPACT

According to Civica Rx, the company’s initial plan is to bring more than 14 hospital-administered generic drugs to hospitals and healthcare systems in 2019, with the next phase prioritizing “many additional medications.” Civica Rx also aims to gain FDA approval as a drug manufacturer and will either directly manufacture generic drugs or contract the work to an outside manufacturer.

THE TREND

The initiative previously known as Project Rx and was announced in January 2018. It will be headquartered in Utah which is also the home base for one of its founding member orgs, Intermountain Healthcare.

The original founding members included Catholic Health Initiatives, the Gary and Mary West Foundation, HCA Healthcare, Intermountain Healthcare, Laura & John Arnold Foundation, Mayo Clinic, the Peterson Center on Healthcare, Providence St. Joseph Health, SSM Health, and Trinity Health, representing about 500 U.S. hospitals. Each organization will provide leadership for the venture’s Board of Directors.

“We are thrilled to welcome these highly-regarded health systems to Civica as founding members,” said Martin VanTrieste, CEO of Civica Rx. “Drug shortages have become a national crisis where patient treatments and surgeries are canceled, delayed or suboptimal. We thank these organizations for joining us to make essential generic medicines accessible and affordable in hospitals across the country.”